Better Black and White
by Snowfallxo
Summary: sometimes a fight is better black and white... Nalex/Joella/Kacy
1. stay

**Better Black and White****  
**a JONAS and Wizards of Waverly Place crossover fanfic

**"…sometimes a fight is better black and white."  
**One battle does not win the war, and once again the fight to keep the forbidden power on Earth is ignited as two eternal opponents are allied against an unlikely enemy that have always been considered inferior. When the enemy lives amongst you, how can you be sure who to trust? For some, it's a test of love and loyalty as the line between mortal and immortal is drawn in with a big fat permanent marker. And what follows sets the whole world off into a battle pitting magic against modern technology to the death.

**"…if you cut me i suppose i would bleed the colors of the evening stars…"  
**Families are torn apart, friendships forever broken, relationships dashed upon rocks, and there is not a country in the world who hasn't joined World War III. But if there was one thing to be thankful for, the Lucas family thinks they've found it - their family is one that has managed to stay together. But everything's about to change when the three Lucas brothers are once again torn apart by a new prophecy that makes it clear -- only one side can win, and they're not all on that same side. One boy betrays them all by making a decision that destroys the fates of the three brothers forever. And they're not ready to sacrifice everything again...

**"…you can go anywhere you wish, 'cause i'll be there wherever you are, my darling…"  
**Each brother must follow his heart to have a chance at survival, and for each of them, it's easier than they expected. For one, it's to save the girl who saved his own life once, and to finally achieve that happily-ever-after ending he's been dreaming of. For the second, it's to figure out his true feelings about a girl he's barely thought twice about loving, and he has to do it quick - his life and her life hang on the line because of it. And for the third, his decision to turn traitor is influenced by the one he's always loved - the one he could never love.

**"…i found out nothing comes without a cost, life was just a game we lost…"  
**Alex, Stella, Macy, Juliet. Nicholas, Joseph, Kevin, Justin. Each of their lives hangs on the line, a single poker chip in the game of war. They are the eight teenagers that could - and would - change the world. Except they can't all survive. At least one must die. And none of them wants that one to be them. One boy is the traitor to their own kind and blood. Another can't tell white from black, right from wrong, love from losing. The third comes from nowhere to become the one of the most powerful of his kind. And the fourth goes from one species to another in a horrible accident that changes the way the game is played. The girls are divided in the same way - one is the one who lures the traitor, another is the gray between her lover's black and white, the third shares the eternal power, and the fourth is the one who changes that last.

And as they'll learn, it all comes back to haunt you in the end.

**"…so, what will it take to make or break these hints of love? only time, only time…"

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**A/N: Are you excited? I am. Pumped. This is going to be EPIC. It said so on my JONAS pencil. EPIC. People will change, die, all sorts of fun stuff. Let the evil begin. I also learned today (probably yesterday by the time I actually post this) that there's going to be a new episode of JONAS on the fourteenth! I considered actually waiting, but the most I'm going to wait is a couple days until I go searching for it on the internet. Haha.**

**And in other big huge Jonas news, STAY! Who's heard it? Who loves it? ME! Although, of course, it was like one of two major highlights of the concerts I went to back in January – Stay, and Fireflies. Math class, for a second now: adam young x nick jonas x joe jonas x kevin jonas = LOVE. Or, if you want to simplify, owl city times jonas cubed is LOVE. Fireflies + Nick? Lizzy's happiness goes through the roof. Stay? She can no longer think. That boy is an amazing songwriter and an amazing singer. And since it's supposedly rumored to be about Selena… well, I couldn't resist.**

**Oh, and Alex in heels equals me in heels. Enough said. This is a ridiculously long author's note, so let's get the boring stuff over with.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but yet, I tend to seriously hurt all of them more often than not. Plus, I have the benefit of owning stock in Disney, so I own stock in the Jonas Brothers and in Selena Gomez and David Henrie and all the other random people… unfortunately, I also own stock in Miley. –shudders-**

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**chapter one: [tell me that you'll] stay**

**(apov)**

I stood in my room, looking in the mirror, and was amazed at what I saw. Harper, for once, had come through and made me a dress that (I hoped) would knock poor Nicholas off his feet. It was sparkly, red, and beautiful. And I was wearing it.

Six months ago, you could have asked anyone who knew me in the slightest bit if I would ever a) go to Harper for fashion advice and b) wear a dress like that, and they would have laughed in your face. But I felt like a new person now – Nick had changed me, just as I'd changed him. Love did that to you.

"Thank you so much!" I squealed, and hugged my best friend close to me. She hugged me back, either thrilled (and surprised, no doubt) that I liked the dress she'd made me or just happy that I was happy. And I was, of course – and couldn't remember a time when was more happy than this.

"You're welcome," she said with a smile, then looked away, a little sheepishly. "Promise next time we can double date? You, me, Nick, and Zeke?"

"Ugh, Zeke!" I groaned. I had momentarily forgotten about the alien-geek that was Harper's boyfriend. You know, if "momentarily" lasted for about two months, yeah, that's what happened. I felt the old Alex bubbling up inside of me, ready to make some snide comment about alien language league, but I kept her inside. "Um, maybe."

She eyed me weird. "Go on, say it. You can't act completely out of character for six months without breaking once."

I sighed. "Fine. Absolutely not. Not only would it ruin my image, but imagine if Nick was seen with him? The paparazzi would be all over that." It might have been worth mentioning that the paparazzi didn't know I was dating Nick (we'd managed to keep it a secret – half of our dates had been to the sub shop), but I left that small part out. Harper overlooked that, and instead called me on how I insulted her boyfriend of eight months (longer than I had been with Nick… but even I knew that eight was more than six) even though she had practically given me permission.

"Thanks for the psychotic rant, Harper. Really appreciated, especially after you practically gave me permission to do that," I told her once she was done.

"It's true," she muttered defensively, and towed me out the door downstairs. "Now, Nick's going to be here soon, so you should be downstairs waiting. Take the purse, and if anything goes wrong, call me." She tried to shove a purse into my hands, but this was where Harper's fashion sense had gone wrong – it was red and sparkly, sure, like my dress, but unlike my dress, it had little lobsters on it.

"Um, thanks, Harper, but that's the ugliest thing I've ever seen," I stammered, trying to be nice and mean at the same time. Why I even tried, I still wasn't sure. Nick claimed to like my sarcastic humor, and could be sarcastic himself if he tried, but I wasn't so nosy and suspicious of my boyfriend to actually go into his head and see if he was lying to me or not.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm forever, eternally, and magically bonded to my boyfriend. So if I so choose, I can hear what he's thinking and he can hear what I'm thinking. And we can telepathically communicate. Stuff like that. It happened partially by accident, partially by purpose. If you missed that, you might want to go back a little bit. Like a lot. Because some of this might not make a lot of sense. Mostly all of it. Unless you just want to just focus on the romance stuff, but believe me, there's not too much of it. Not as much as I'd like, anyway.

Anyway. Back to the story, because most of you knew that much already.

"I think it's cute," Harper pouted, her lower lip sticking out.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, you're _you._"

She was about to reply to my comment when my mom called out from downstairs, "Alex, honey, Nick's here!" Harper gave me one last shove, and I caught my balance just in time to keep from falling down the spiral staircase.

"Hey, beautiful," he said once he saw me. I blushed furiously and looked away from him, embarrassed. I tripped on the bottom stair, but he was there to catch me. Okay, so that's all terribly cliché, but the good action bad-romance stuff is coming, okay?

"Thanks." I stood up and straightened out my dress. My parents were not-so-secretly staring at me and my red dress and high heels. It was all a joke – Harper's idea.

"I wasn't expecting you to get this…" He trailed off, speechless. And it was obvious he wasn't, he was wearing what he would always wear – plaid shirt, cute Lucas-brother skinny jeans, curly hair just so perfect. "Wow."

"Harper's idea," I muttered. From the top of the staircase, my red-headed friend gave me two thumbs up and held out the lobster purse. Nick read my face (and my thoughts) and started laughing, and he got me started too.

"And that is why we have Stella," he murmured in my ear, and I grinned. "The dress is nice, though, really."

I blushed even harder when he said that; my face was probably the color of my dress by now. "Aww, look, Alex is blushing," Max teased, grinning. I took a running start to go tackle him, tripped after two steps in my heels, and Nick caught me again.

"I think I'll go change," I said, eager to get out of the stupid heels and dress.

"No, don't," Nick said quickly, holding me by my arm as he pulled out his wand. Within seconds, he turned his plaid shirt and jeans into something he still looked just as cute in – a collared shirt, dress pants, and a tie. He was still just as adorable, though – nothing could change that.

"Obviously you learned magic from Alex," Justin muttered, a smile on his face. Nick smiled right back – God, how I loved his smile – and pulled me close to him again.

"Everyday I wonder what you did with my daughter," my dad said, and Nick chuckled slightly as I listened to his heartbeat, pressed up against his chest. I think he was trying to make me blush again, but only Nick could make me blush.

"Thank you for letting me take your daughter out," he said, being polite and cute and everything else he was while looking into my eyes. I wanted to look away, but his chocolate brown eyes held me trapped in his gaze.

My mom smiled. "No, thank you, Nick," she said as he led me out the door. On his way out, he picked up a guitar – it was his, he left it here on occasion – and brought me outside. I eyed the instrument suspiciously, as if he was hiding a bomb in there. He smiled and shook his head when he heard my thought, but didn't say anything. We walked down the street in silence, me stumbling over my feet and him catching me every time. I'd like to say that I was doing it all on purpose simply to get him to hold me, but I couldn't walk for the life of me in heels.

We reached a corner of the street, and he took out the guitar, strumming it softly. I eyed the ring and dogtag around his neck as he tuned it, and he whispered softly, "I wrote you a song, Alex. No more covers, old songs this time. It's all for you."

I couldn't speak as he began to play his instrument, stunned into silence by the simple beauty of his playing. And he hadn't started singing yet.

"It's hard to believe where we are now, your hand in mine feels right somehow," he sang, softly, perfectly. "The night is so still, don't make a sound, it's almost perfect baby, so promise you'll never look down…"

'_cause we had our past, i know  
__let's leave that behind  
'__cause none of it lasts,  
__all that we have is tonight_

'_cause you're not the only one  
__who's ever felt this way  
__don't let the world cave in  
__just tell me that you'll stay_

_now that the pain is done  
__there's no need to be afraid  
__we don't have time to waste  
__just tell me that you'll stay_

"Beautiful, one of a kind," he continued, and I couldn't help but think that he was exaggerating, "you're something special baby, don't even realize that you're my heart's desire, all that I've needed and more, but I promise, babe, I'm not who I was before…"

There wasn't more true words spoken on this planet – over the past six months that we'd known each other, we'd all changed. Nick found out he was a wizard, at first, and we fell in love, saved the world from an evil spirit that was possessing him, and attempted to hide from wizard hunters who were also his brothers. Did you miss that part, too? If you did, go back and read the first one. We put all that work into it, even _me, _and if you're just going to blow it off, then you won't understand anything and I'll be mad. Like, really mad.

Back to the better stuff. Namely, Nick's indescribable song.

'_cause you're not the only one  
__who's ever felt this way  
__don't let the world cave in  
__just tell me that you'll stay  
_

_________now that the pain is done  
__there's no need to be afraid  
__we don't have time to waste  
__just tell me that you'll stay._

"I'll stay, Nicholas," I whispered, as loudly as I could manage without choking on my tears. You know that feeling you get when you finish the jigsaw puzzle of life, and every single piece of it fits together perfectly, so that it creates one big picture of perfection? I was there, and living in the moment, with Nick and no one else. When he set the guitar down and pulled me close to him, I noticed that his eyes mirrored the happy tears that were in mine as well.

And then we kissed, because the Hallmark moment wouldn't be complete without it.


	2. once upon a nightmare

**A/N: Yay! Chapter two! I've survived the blue screen of death... now will tomorrow's geometry test be the end of me? Will I fail just and have to be tutored by my older brothers so I can go on a world tour? Probably not, considering that I don't have older brothers and I don't need to go on a world tour. But stay tuned -- Nick must endure those challenges on the next new episode of JONAS! Me, I'm just hoping I'll pass. Or that Nick will tutor me from the new knowledge he learned from his brothers.**

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**chapter two: once upon a nightmare**

**(npov)**

"Nick!"

_The cry echoed through my sleep-drunk brain, but yet, it was not enough to fully awaken me from my dreams. Instead, this was one, and I found myself lost in it as if it were some reality, a reality that belonged to me, but wasn't quite mine._

_Someone was dragging me down a flight of stairs, and try as I could, I was blindfolded and gagged and I couldn't even move myself to try and fight back. Instead, my limbs seemed to move by myself, and I was helpless to watch, bringing back memories of being trapped inside my own body, powerless to do anything but watch as someone else chose my actions._

_But these weren't my actions to make, something told me. I wasn't the one being dragged._

_I could feel the pain, however, as we reached the bottom of the stairs and began to be dragged across a smooth linoleum floor. I couldn't comprehend where the cry had come from. Nothing made sense, nothing made sense anymore…_

_Then the feeling of being dragged stopped, and someone picked me up and placed me, not very gently, into something that felt like a dog cage. My blindfold was removed, and I saw others in cages around me… kids, from seven to seventeen, all trapped like me. There was another sharp cry, and it took me a second to realize that it was coming from me…_

_Another cage was thrown in next to me, and I recognized a shaking Justin. His eyes met mine, and he somehow managed to say softly one word, one name: _"Alex."

_One more portable prison was thrown into the back of the van we were in, and the door was closed and an engine started. And as the van started to move, I felt myself slipping away from the dreamscape…_

"Nick!" I opened my eyes just in time to see Kevin dump a glass of water into them, soaking me and the pillow.

"What the hell was that for?" I demanded, sitting up and glaring at my older brother.

"Um, you were screaming and you woke me up," he said matter-of-factly, setting down the plastic cup that used to hold the water that was now on my head. "Are you okay, bro?"

I nodded weakly, looking around, examining my surroundings. The firehouse, naturally. Everything had just been a dream. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a nightmare."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not with you." I sighed and threw my pillow at his face. He shrieked softly when it hit him, feeling for the first time the dampness I would be dealing with for the rest of the night. "Go back to sleep, Kevin. And take the freaking pillow with you."

He smiled and did just that. But once I was sure he'd fallen asleep, I picked up the guitar I'd left beside my bed and softly plucked out the melody to "Stay", the song I had played for Alex two days ago, the last time I had seen her. I sang softly and quietly, not wanting to wake up my brothers, and I did that until dawn, when I finally fell asleep again myself. But the whole time I sat there, awake, I thought about what the dream could have meant. And I didn't know, which worried me.

Worst of all, Alex wouldn't respond to any messages I sent her. So, like any other lovesick teenager who couldn't get a telepathic response from their girlfriend (a grand total of one, me), I spent my Sunday afternoon after church pacing.

"Careful, Nick, you'll wear a hole in the ground," Joe said, not even looking up from his book. I sent a scowl in his direction, which he didn't even see, and continued to create the hypothetical trench in the floor until the doorbell rang.

"You two better not have ordered any pizza again!" our dad called from the bathroom. I met my brother's eyes and we both shrugged.

"Let's hope it's the Girl Scouts," Joe said. "They can be just as good, plus the Samoas are so incredibly…" He sighed blissfully and ran down the stairs, and I tagged along (no cookie pun intended) at his heels.

Unfortunately for Joe, our visitor wasn't a Girl Scout. It was Juliet, Justin's vampire girlfriend. "I didn't know vampires sold cookies," Joe muttered, a little disappointed.

As it turned out, Juliet wasn't in the mood for Joe's stupid humor. "Nick, thank god you're here, you're okay." She threw her arms around me as if it wasn't awkward at all that she would be hugging her boyfriend's sister's boyfriend.

"What's going on?" Joe asked. "Why wouldn't he be okay?"

"You haven't heard?" She stepped backwards. "There's been a security breach at the MUN – Magic United Nations, yeah, creative name, I know. The mortals, the whole world – they know. They know we exist. And the government, the whole world, they're taking action and arresting any magical creatures they can find, anyone with magical abilities. Nick…" She avoided my eyes, and suddenly the significance of last night fell into place. "They took Justin. Alex. Max."

I couldn't think. Alex, gone, no… "Their parents," Juliet continued, "they're considered 'mortal' by government standards – are heartbroken, the wizard world is in complete panic, and anyone that has any magical abilities of any kind is in danger. We're outnumbered. It's over."

"Nick, you said that you couldn't reach Alex telepathically?" Joe asked. I nodded weakly, fighting tears. "Oh, shit."

I tried one last time. _Alex, please answer me…_

Naturally, there was no reply.

"Well, come on in," Joe said, trying to be polite, but Juliet looked like she couldn't care less whether or not we treated her as a houseguest or not. As we trudged up the stairs, that was the last thing on any of our minds.

Frankie was staring at the TV when we came upstairs, and he recognized our presence by pointing to the screen in horror. The look on his face was one I never wanted to see on any nine-year-old, let alone my little brother.

The reporter on screen was talking, standing in front of a store I recognized as Macy's mom's thrift shop – Misa's Pieces. My heart sank, and I exchanged a long glance with Joe. "This is the former home of one wizard family among many – and if you know of any persons possessing magical abilities, please contact the hotline shown on your screen. For Channel 3, I'm Chelsea Anderson."

"Macy too?!" Joe looked ready to scream. "We are so dead."

"What about Macy?" Kevin came running out of the bathroom in his robe, then saw Juliet and backed slowly away. "Um, oh, hi Juliet."

"It's not just about Macy," Frankie said softly, tears brimming in his round brown eyes. "It's about all of us. We're all going to die." His eyes wandered back to the TV, where a weatherman was now promising a late November snowstorm totaling eleven inches of snow.

"To put it bluntly," Joe muttered.

As Juliet and Joe launched into an explanation of the upcoming magical apocalypse for Kevin, Juliet filling in the holes when Joe didn't know anything, Frankie came over and hugged me close to him, crying. And I didn't blame him, there was nothing I would rather do at the moment than just that. He collapsed in a chair, and I sat with him, holding him gently in my arms, his head on my chest, crying softly. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that the warm drops of liquid on my cheek were my tears, not his.

Thirty minutes later, he fell asleep in my lap as Stella came running up the stairs. "Oh my gosh, guys, did you hear?" she exclaimed, then looked at Kevin. "What the hell are you wearing?"

"We've been having a heated discussion on, um, politics," Kevin stammered out. "You know, um, health care and the economy and all that jazz. I got really into it."

"Go change," she snapped at him, and as he got up, took his spot. "So did you hear?"

"Yeah, it's going to snow," muttered Joe, avoiding Stella's eyes. We all knew what exactly she was talking about, but of course, being two (three if you counted Frankie) Angels, a wizard, and a vampire respectively, none of us quite wanted to be talking about our own demise. Whether Stella knew it or not. "Don't you hate November snow?" he continued, brushing his long straight bangs out of his face. "It's all slushy and warm and yuck."

Stella shook her head rapidly. "No, you idiot. The whole story about the wizards and such. Magic. I think it's so cool. And totally scary." She noticed Juliet for the first time. "Hey, who's this? Kevin's new girlfriend? You know, Macy might be a little…" She trailed off awkwardly. So maybe she was watching a different channel than us. She didn't know that Macy had been, um, compromised. For complete lack of a nicer word.

"Um, no." Juliet smiled warmly and tried to compose herself, maybe trying to make herself seem just a little more human. "I'm Juliet, a, um, friend. And I have a boyfriend who is not Kevin," she added quickly.

"You remember Justin," I murmured so I wouldn't wake Frankie. "Alex's brother. The Russos are on an, um, extended trip. Away from home."

Stella nodded. "Oh, yeah. Nice to meet you." She looked around. "But did you hear? It's totally terrifying, but it's so cool."

"So, if, say, your best friends were wizards, you wouldn't mind?" Joe proposed casually. Juliet actually elbowed him in the side, which coming from a vampire, would completely hurt. "I'm not saying they are, or at least… well, um, never mind."

"Ask the wizard," Kevin sang under his breath, rejoining us. I remembered the SNL skit we'd done and smiled slightly, hugging Frankie closer to me.

"Um…" She shrugged. "Depends. Would said wizard turn against me?"

"Said wizard might kiss you," Joe replied, and did just that. Stella actually pushed him away and gave him a look, which prompted him to say, "Dude, I'm just kidding. I'm not a wizard. I'm too cool to be a wizard." My brother had the nerve to look directly at me, grinning widely. I rolled my eyes and brushed Frankie's hair out of his face. He stirred slightly, but didn't wake up.

Kevin sent a glance in my direction as well. "Well, as lovely as all this talk is about magic and such, is anyone hungry? Juliet, Nick?" He kind of made it clear that he didn't want Joe to come with him. And the weird thing is, Joe didn't even seem to care.

As gently as I could, I stood up with Frankie still in my arms and followed my curly-haired brother downstairs, Juliet right behind me. After putting Frankie in his bed, I rejoined them in the kitchen. "Alex, Macy, and Justin," I whispered. "Not to mention Max and anyone else stuck in wherever they're holding these people. I'm not going to rest until I know that Alex is okay, and I can assume the same for you, Juliet." The vampire girl nodded. "And Kevin, I know that you and Macy are just friends, but…"

"I'm in," he interrupted. "I'd do anything to save her and the rest of our kind." I found myself liking how he said "our kind". Like that the wizards and the Angels were finally at peace. Like that it was okay that we weren't really brothers or that we (technically, a lot had changed in laws since the battle) were supposed to destroy each other. Now we were all working together, and it wasn't just us three.

Except that Joe wasn't here. And I wasn't sure why.

"It's Stella," Kevin whispered, answering my question. Freaking mind reading thing. "He's too… bound to her. Not in the sense that you are to Alex, Nick, but… it's enough to get in the way. And sure, he's my brother, but I don't trust him to stay _loyal._"

"Still haven't heard anything from her?" Juliet asked, and I shook my head solemnly.

"We'll leave tomorrow night," I said. "We'll have to do research and stuff along the way, you know, find out exactly where we're going, but…"

"Let's do this," Kevin agreed.

And other than the fact that I didn't know exactly how to do "this", I hoped and hoped and hoped that in the end, everything would end up okay.

But at night, I couldn't sleep. I watched the snow fall with my hopes and, silently, wished that in the end, we could have our fairy-tale back. Instead, we had a story fit for a horror movie that was instead a reality.

_We're coming, Alex. Don't worry._

If only I wouldn't worry myself.

i spend my  
coldest nights  
alone awake  
and thinking of  
the weekend  
we were in love.

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**A/N: This is seriously important - please read the rant on my profile and vote in the poll. (At first, I typed pool. Please do not vote in the pool.) I really want your opinion - and on that note, your reviews! So please please please please please please please do that too!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own JONAS or WOWP. Sorry to disappoint.**


	3. dreaming, leaving, loving

**A/N: This is a filler chapter, but I needed to get them to a certain place and introduce an element to the story that was touched upon in Behind Enemy Lines but never really fully put into place. I don't own any of the lyrics in bold, they belong to Nick Jonas (and the Administration), Owl City (those two were big shockers, I know), and Sterling Knight/ "Christopher Wild"/Disney Channel. Or any of the characters in JONAS or WOWP. Which is all of them. Sigh. My OCs are coming :)

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**chapter three: dreaming, leaving, loving**

_She cries his name, he hears her._

_And yet, he's powerless to help as he tosses and turns in his sleep. He calls out to her as well, but she can't hear him. She doesn't know that he walks the aisles of the hallways in his sleep, staring at the rows of cages upon cages of children. Children not unlike himself._

_She's one of them, he knows it. He stops in front of her cage and sticks his fingers through the holes. She's huddled in the corner, crying, alone. She doesn't see him, but she still repeats his name over and over again, as if saying it aloud would make things better. Because she's never felt so lost without him._

_He knows it's a dream, and that's what kills him. He knows that he'll wake up, safe and soundly, but he misses her arms around him, and she'll always be here until he comes to save her. But he doesn't know how to do that. All he knows is that he has to figure it out fast._

_And as she cries herself to sleep in the corner of the cage, he presses himself up against the wire webbing and cries as well, hating the fact that he's free and she's not. And he's ready to risk it all, to catch her if she falls._

_But she's falling, and no matter how fast he runs, he feels like he'll never be able to catch her, never able to save her, never able to even help her._

**she hopes that  
****no one will see  
****every time she  
****dries her tears.**

_It's the middle of the night, and yet, a guard comes and opens the door to the girl's cage. She shies away from him, a single leftover tear trickling down her cheek. The guard's heard about this one, she's crazy, his colleagues have said. She mutters a name, a guy's name, over and over again, they had told him, and as he's taking her to a different room, she's doing just that. _"Nick, Nick…"

_He doesn't make a comment, in a way, he feels a little bad for the girl. She was pretty, she had long blackish hair and brown eyes, bloodshot and teary. But she was a wizard, devious and out to destroy the world or something like that. He wanted to make the world a better place without them._

_He slides his access card across the door sensor, and it slides into the wall as if they were walking onto the bridge of the USS Enterprise. She takes in her surroundings – it was the first time she had been out of her holding cage until now. But the bloodstains on the floor aren't a good sign, nor are the tiny voices she hears in her head._

_Without warning to her, the doors slide in and the guard punches her in the face, hard, right below her eye. She's knocked to the floor in surprise, and he puts his foot on her stomach, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She gasps for air, struggling, but her hands are tied and she's helpless._

"Where's your little 'Nick' now?" _he growled, and kicked her sharply in the side._

**it hurts just  
****to wake up  
****whenever you're  
****wearing thin.**

"Nicholas!"

You'd think half the neighborhood had shown up at my bedside. Joe, Kevin, Frankie, Juliet, who had stayed the night, and both of my parents were staring holes into my head. "Go away," I muttered, rolling over so my face was in my pillow.

"You're bleeding," Joe whispered, stunned, and we all watched as cuts began to appear on my hands, oozing red liquid out of them. "Nick, are you okay…?"

"Yes," I whimpered like a six-year-old. "But it hurts." I held back my tears, I wasn't going to cry. But Alex was in danger, somehow I'd seen what they were doing to her. Tease her, hurt her, rape her. It wasn't fair, why did they have her instead of me?

"Come with me," my mom said, and led me into the bathroom. Tenderly, like I was still a little kid, she gave me some painkillers, washed out the cuts and wrapped my arm in a bandage. "I'd put some of our healing stuff on you, but I'm not sure how it would react," she explained softly. "We'll do what we can, Nicky."

"Don't call me that," I muttered through clenched teeth. The pain didn't stop coming, it was in lashes now, stinging and hurting and painful.

"Sorry." She finished wrapping it and moved onto my eye, which I knew would be black in the morning. It was swelling, all puffy and gross-looking. My dad appeared at the doorway and gave me some ice to put on it, which I did gladly.

"Do you have something sharp in your bed, Nick?" he asked curiously.

"No," I mumbled.

Both of them immediately looked concerned. "Then what's hurting you?" my mom asked softly. "Nick, I know this might go a bit over our heads, but we won't yell at you, we won't jump to conclusions."

I didn't want to lie, but I didn't want them to get too concerned. "It's Alex," I said softly. "I think she's being hurt."

"And this affects you how?" my dad asked.

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Nicholas, we want to help you," he pressed on.

"Well, I don't want your help. I'm fine." I brushed past him to go back to bed, where my brothers and Juliet were standing.

"Sure you are," Kevin said softly. Once our parents were gone and they'd brought Frankie back down to bed, the four of us were gathered around my bed in the floor. "So you're feeling better?"

"No, I feel like shit," I muttered. Another wave of pain came, the punches and kicks this time. I tried very hard not to gasp for air awkwardly. "Goodnight." I shoved my face into the pillow and pretended to go to sleep. Whoever was beating on Alex had stopped, and I found myself wondering in the absence of pain why I could feel that and not hear her.

Joe rolled me over and pulled me up to a sitting position, using my bad arm to do so. I nearly cried out with the pain that came with the pressure he applied to the cuts. "Dude, seriously. We're here for you."

"Well, I don't want you 'here'. I want you to go away."

Kevin opened his mouth to say something, but Juliet cut him off before he could start. "Leave him alone," she said. "If your brother wants to suffer in silence, let him do that."

There's nothing like a girl to get your brothers to leave you alone. Even if she's a vampire.

**see it turning  
****red, like a bullet  
****through the chest.**

"So those Lucas boys aren't as innocent as they want the world to think they are," I heard someone whisper. It was my last day of school for what could be forever and all everyone could talk about was my black eye, my injuries, my everything. So maybe I had a girlfriend who was being tortured by the US Government and I was magically bonded to her in such a way that all of her injuries showed up on my body. Why did they really have to hold that against me?

Because they didn't know, and they would never know. That was why.

"Oh my gosh. Nicholas Jerry Lucas, what the hell did you get into last night?" Stella demanded, scanning me over.

"His bed," Joe said, grinning, as if I didn't look like shit and feel like shit and it wasn't a problem that the world as we knew it was going to end. Nope. Not a problem if you're Joe Lucas, if your girlfriend is alive and unthreatened. But if you're Kevin, Nick, or Juliet, I think the fact that our own girlfriends/boyfriend were in mortal danger (and were being hurt, as was so unhappily proved by moi) proved that it was, in fact, a problem.

"Death by pillow," I muttered. "And unknown imaginary sharp objects."

"You look like hell," she replied to that. "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine, I just spent half the night bleeding, that's all."

She looked horrified. "Oh my gosh, really? Did you get any bloodstains on your clothes?"

Yeah, glad to know you care, Stella. "Not that I know of," I replied. "I don't know, let me ask them."

"Something's wrong," Stella remarked softly to Joe when I turned my back to get to class. "And may I ask why you two aren't even trying to help? I mean, did you see the cuts? Is he cutting himself?"

"Nick? Of course not," Kevin snorted.

"Well, I'm worried about him," she replied. "I want to find out what's wrong."

"Get in line," Joe muttered, but they knew. They knew that everything was wrong.

**i feel rather  
****depressed and  
****out of place.**

The vanilla twilight came quickly that night, and as I stood on my front porch for what could be the last time, I realized that when I thought of her, I didn't feel so alone. I realized that I was ready to give up my everything and more for her, for her brother, for my friend. For wizard and Angel alike, for werewolves and vampires and anyone in danger. I wouldn't give up. I'd be unstoppable.

But mainly, I doing it for Alex. For everything I'd promised her, the forever and always and fairy-tale endings. For the happiness, for the highs and lows, for everything in between. For us. I did this for us.

"You ready, bro?" Kevin asked softly, coming to my side. "You have everything? Insulin?" That was Kevin; goofy, silly, musically talented, but caring and watchful for you. My brother.

"Yeah." I looked to the evening stars, their light dimmed by the street lights and light pollution. "I'm all set." I rubbed my arm tenderly; the scratches that hadn't been bandaged ran up and down my arms and legs like cutter's marks. Just five minutes ago, we'd finished disguising ourselves so we wouldn't be recognized – the last thing we wanted was to be seen by the paparazzi while we were trying to stay hidden. I pushed my new long, blonde, and yes, straight bangs off to the side and clutched the handle of my guitar case harder, dreading the moment where we would have to leave, but knowing that it was the only way to save Alex. And somehow I knew that having to straighten my beloved curls was not going to be the hardest part.

Juliet walked out of the firehouse and closed the door behind her, shiny brown ringlets bouncing as she did so. It looked so unnatural, but Kevin had believed it the only way and we let him do whatever he wanted. "Let's go," she said softly. Kevin took the guitar from me as I took out my wand.

"We might never come back," my older brother whispered. "We might never see Joe again. Frankie. Mom, Dad. Stella."

"My parents," Juliet echoed.

"But we have to be okay with it." I looked back one last time at the place I once had called home. "We have to be okay with giving up everything to save someone else." And I was okay with that. In reality, my life was meaningless, something I could and was willing to sacrifice to save others. I hoped Alex was okay with that.

Kevin put his hand on my shoulder and nodded. Juliet squeezed my hand, a light, friendly touch. And with my free hand, I held my wand even tighter and incanted softly, "Three loved ones of ours have been condemned, take us to where we could find them."

The world around us disappeared with a flash of light, and then everything was dark.

**if you're the  
****one for me,  
****like gravity,  
****i'll be unstoppable.**


	4. butterfly effect

**A/N: Sorry for the delay on updating. I died, sort of. I was banned from the computer. Sigh… but I wanted to update, and although it's short, I like it. It's meant to be mysterious... Also, who's excited for world tour '10?! I'm psyched, personally. Like OMG JONAS BROTHERS!!!! and Demi too!**

**Disclaimer: …I don't have something witty to say so I'll leave it at the very boring "I don't own anything".**

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**chapter four: the butterfly effect {makeawave}**

_**five years later**_

"_The museum will be closing in fifteen minutes," a voice announced over the loudspeaker. "Thank you for visiting us today. We will be open again tomorrow from nine to five."_

_A man, maybe about in his early twenties, walked into the room, a room that gave him goose bumps whenever he saw it. Around the wall, lining it, were cages. Dog cages. Dog cages that used to hold people. Wizards, shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves, angels. He walks slowly, reading the signs and trying to remember what it had been like to be kept in one of these crates, be tortured like they had been. He's been here so many times, and many times before it was a museum as well. He remembered the shame. So many tears were shed in this room, cries that only the walls heard. People died in here._

_His eyes fall upon a book that he hadn't seen before, sticking out of one of the locked crates. His curious fingers clasp it and pull it completely out. He opens it to see writing, a girl's writing. And on the back of the cover, a name. If he could cry, he knew tears would come to his eyes._

_The boy begins to read, dreading what this could possibly be about._

my life i think is over they've trapped me and so many others in here and i don't know if we're ever going to be rescued if only he could hear me could be here with me right now that would be alright he could light up my life and make me see it differently change me more than he's changed me before

help i cry but he can't hear me anymore i've never felt so alone scared and terrified of what's coming even before i knew him before i messed everything up before this before i changed our lives forever for the better?

my screams echo in my head with words i've never said the ones i do say ring out upon the walls taunting me with my aloneness alone i'm alone alone alone without him my love alone i will die alone in this place i hope he saves me i know he's coming somehow i know he feels the same way that he misses me too

we are still one person i think somehow we've been cut in two not completely yet but it's a fresh wound it's open and i can feel the pain of not having him here with me like i can't function without my other half and that's what he is no exaggeration i'm eternally in love with him not that i have a choice but i think i know i want to be there and i am in spirit maybe but that's just never enough

my name?

my name is alexandra margarita russo and i'm seventeen years old and a wizard and i'm going to die in here which maybe would have been preferable if it hadn't been for nicholas jerry lucas and how i'm hopelessly in love with him in a very non-fangirl way because we are the same person technically i mean i made a mistake with that but if i die he dies and i don't want that to happen he's much more important than me and i think you might know who he is but

i miss nick.

i'm a wizard girl in a dog cage my jail a cell all i have is this book i hate books but it's the only thing that will listen to me and my pencil i hate pencils too but that's not the point they've taken away everything i love including nick but also my brothers justin and max max and justin and my mom and dad and i've never thought that i actually needed them but i do i do i do i miss harper my sister i want nothing bad to ever happen to someone anyone i love.

justin told me once that plastic limits wizard powers but he never said they render them completely useless because somehow we're all stuck in here with no way to use magic to get us out of here now we're doomed because also they like to torture us they the guards and we can't fight back because of fucking plastic i used to gnaw on that as a baby i now know why it's stupid

how do mortals know about plastic anyway was it a lucky guess or did some sort of bitchy wizard decide to tell someone become a traitor i hate traitors i want to fight for what i believe in to the best of my ability which isn't much i'll admit but i'll still try because well this is just a stupid rant and i'm tired i can't fall asleep ever been so tired far too tired to fall asleep?

to whoever might read this journal diary paper book story of what happens to me in here, if you know that anyone of them is alive any of them at all tell them show them this tell them that i love them justin max mom dad harper and juliet justin's girlfriend and dean and riley and uncle kelbo and aunt megan and of course nick nick nick my nicholas nick and his brothers joe kevin frankie his parents please just tell them that i'm sorry for everything i've ever ever done

howls whines screams moans i hear them all from everyone around me but most of all i hear my tears so many of them they don't stop as if they're going to build up in my cage and drown me in here

i'm sorry for whatever i did and nick i love you if i die and you die i'm sure you'll understand but i love you and i don't want that to happen ever but it will it's unavoidable

goodbye, world.

_A single tear streaks down the man's cheek. _It's all in the past_, he thinks, _andthere's nothing I can do to change it now. _Then he sticks the book in his back pocket before walking out of the museum, out of the past and into the present. He won't forget Alex Russo and her story, not for as long as he lives._

_He'll live forever, he knows. And forever, he'll have her fate on his hands. He's never let himself believe that it was someone else – he knew, he knew that it was him._

"Don't cry." _A girl, about his age, puts her arm around his shoulder. _"Listen, there's one more thing we can try, I know we can."

_He looks at her, and knows what she means. Time travel. _ "We could change everything in the past. We save them, we'll kill someone else. Ourselves. It's the butterfly effect – the theory that the beat of a butterfly's wings, or the simple accidental killing of a ladybug, can set off a storm a world away, can destroy us all. What if they're right? What if the smallest of things can really set off a hurricane?"

_She shook her head. _"I always knew you'd give up everything for that girl back then," _she said. _"Tell me, what makes right now any different?"

_He takes out the book again, and flipping through all the empty pages, and the pages with words, sees that she wrote one more thing in the back. A note, a small note._

Dear Justin,

You win.

-Alex

_Little does she know that her beloved brother lost. They both lost._

"Not now," _he says quietly. _"I'm not ready."

_The girl shakes her head_. "You loved her," _she whispers. _"She loved you."

"Not like she loved him." _He looks to the ground, willing the tears to his eyes. Of course, they don't come._

"Yes, she loved him," _the girl says pointedly. _"But there's a difference between a lover and a brother. He, of all people, knew that most." _She looks him in the eyes, as if trying to use her own orbs to convince him of this._

_He flips through the book one more time, scanning the rest of it briefly. The introduction of periods, and commas.. Everything she'd ever thought in that room, it was in this book. Like it or not, it was the key to changing the past. It was the key to changing the future._

_He walks away, and the colors fade to gray. Every single moment seems a waste._

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_A/N: ...she hits the gas, hoping it would pass, but the red light starts to flash, it's time to... review? :D make a wave, make a wave... other than all this randomness - i'd like to know who you think the boy is in the last part. cookies to anyone who gets it right... not that i'd tell you.**


	5. lies, damned lies, and statistics

**A/N: I guess this story is just getting pretty damn weird. Well, it's got to go somewhere. Third person seemed appealing here. I don't know why.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, really. I think there are a couple of Owl City and Jonas references. Not to mention Justin Bieber. Except I'm only making fun of him. I guess. Sort of.**

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**chapter five: lies, damned lies, and statistics**

After two days, she had the new routine memorized.

Every thirty minutes, a guard would walk in, make sure everything was in order, and walk out. They were on a cycle: long-haired hippie woman, then buzz-cut teenager, after him came barefoot lady, then the janitor to clean up (halfway through the day, there was nothing left to clean), then the business man with the nice suit and the permanent scowl, then new guy, the hesitant blonde-hair Justin-Bieber look-alike, and then the long-haired hippie again. The guy who reminded her of a crazy drunken farmer had been fired. Or killed. Not too crazy a possibility for this prison.

But as much as Alex hated Justin Bieber, he was the only one who seemed to care. The only one who looked at the kids in the cages with tears in his eyes, seemingly pitiful. He had green eyes, an almost unnatural color, like he'd put contacts in, and maybe some concealer smeared upon his face to cover pimples or moles or something weird like that. He was kind of cute, she thought. Becky, the girl next to her, the pretty one with the dark eyes that reminded her of Nick's and the dark smooth skin the color of cocoa beans and a smile that sometimes made her feel a little bit better, agreed with her.

Of course, that feeling never lasted long.

Occasionally, there were breaks in the routine. If someone was screaming too loudly or trying to escape or something like that, Business Man came in, took them out of their dog crate, and led them away. Alex remembered when that had happened to her - multiple times. She had scars to prove it.

After three days, she noticed that Justin Bieber had scars on his arms, too. He had pushed his sleeves up - it was hot that day - to reveal crisscrossing lines across his arms. Alex studied hers intensely after his shifts that day. Why, she wondered, would anyone want to voluntarily go through the pain of creating those marks?

Becky thought - believed - that it wasn't on purpose - maybe he had cut himself on some glass. The more Alex thought about it, the more she agreed. It wasn't glass, though, that just seemed wrong. It was something else.

There wasn't much Alex believed in, now that she thought about it. There was that song on the radio she liked, and she'd like to make herself believe that planet earth turns slowly, but really, she believed in one thing: Nick.

She believed that Nick was coming to rescue them. Which, in itself, is an ambitious goal for a teenage wizard barely in control of his powers, but he would receive his full wizard powers when he turned eighteen, as was the tradition for only children. Or in Nick's case, the only wizard child in his family.

As Janitor was cleaning up some kid's vomit, Justin Bieber came in. It was the fifth day now, of the new routine. Alex had a notebook, one that she had (as politely as she could muster) asked for and was given to by Business Man. She wrote in it, every day now. Day five. She decided that periods were now necessary to make sense. No capitals. Those she still believed to be overrated. ('Cause hugs are overrated just fyi, she thought to herself.)

She was writing when Becky poked her through the wire of the cages. She looked up, and her friend pointed. Justin Bieber was staring at her.

Alex knew him. She knew that she knew him, somewhere she had seen this boy before.

Obviously, at least, he knew her.

She looked away awkwardly, not knowing what to think. The real Justin Bieber had always totally creeped her out. Sixteen, a freakishly high voice (not like Nick's little kid voice, that was adorable), and a knack for being a hypocrite. One time, thirty-five times. Fake Justin Bieber, the one who was staring at her, was also pretty sketchy. He kept looking back to her, green eyes staring holes.

Alex hated the green eyes. Somehow she felt they should be some other color. A little voice told her that they were all wrong.

As Hippie Girl came in, and Justin Bieber left, it came to her.

Nick's eyes were brown.

* * *

A thousand miles away, a boy and a girl were kissing on the roof of a firehouse.

Seconds before, they'd promised each other that they wouldn't lie to each other ever.

The boy was lying with every breath he took.

"Joe," she whispered to him.

"Stella," he replied softly back.

"Honestly," she said softly. "Are you scared of the whole... magic thing?"

He swallowed. The one subject he didn't want to discuss. The whole reason his brothers weren't here. She was the whole reason that he had said no, that he didn't want to come with them on their save-the-world scheme. And yet he still didn't belong here, not that he belonged there either.

"No," he said finally. "And you shouldn't, either."

We've never been into honestly so promise me you'll let me know when you're lying.

His brother so consistently had a point. Except those words had basically been hers, not his, and he was the one lying and not telling her. He couldn't. His hands were tied between being loyal to who he was and who he loved.

"Ever met a wizard?"

Joe froze. Yes, he thought, my brother is one. He didn't say it out loud. "Would a wizard tell me?" he asked thoughtfully.

"I don't know. I don't think I've met one."

"You never know."

She was silent for a moment. "I think you're lying."

"I've never quite been into the whole honesty concept."

"We just made a promise, Joseph."

"And I've never quite been good at keeping promises."

"I know that, I was just hoping that maybe for once you'd try to be good at it."

"I don't try very hard. If I tried, maybe I'd know how to play something other than the tambourine."

"You're changing the subject. Besides, I like your tambourine."

"You and you only."

"You've got millions of fans, I'm sure a lot of them love your tambourine as much as they love you."

"Yeah, but none of them love me like you do."

"Awww, thanks. Back on subject now?"

"Let's talk about something else. Like the history final."

"Let's not."

"You're no fun."

"Thanks, Joe."

They sit there for a moment longer, in the silence. It's a hope for all the hopeless, Joe realizes, in the worst of trying times, but now they've resorted to being speechless: our love won't survive. There was no way a person - an Angel - like him could ever, ever truly be with a mortal like her. He never wanted to tell her, he wanted this to last forever. That was the thing. He felt like it was true love - like Romeo and Juliet. Exactly like them. His brother had found it, why couldn't he?

Except his brother(s) were gone to God knows where, and he was alone with Frankie and his parents and Stella, who was lying on his shoulder and asking for the truth. She didn't want the truth.

"Answer my question."

"Yes, ma'am."

Silence.

"What was your question?"

"Have you ever met a wizard?"

"Again, would they tell me?"

"You know one. Stop lying."

"Stop lying by telling me I'm lying."

"Okay, that was lame, Joe."

"My life is lame, Stella."

"Answer the question."

"Yes."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"And we're back to square one."

"Would they tell me?"

"If they trusted you."

"What if they didn't?"

"Well, then, I suppose I've been unfairly yelling at you. If you're telling the truth."

"Wish I was a wizard?"

"Excuse me?"

"Answer my question now. You've been bugging me for long enough."

Stella looked out towards the skyline and the stars. "I don't know, honestly."

She did. She wanted Joe to be different, she wanted to him to have a legit reason to lie. But she also knew what that meant - that they couldn't be together. And that was what hurt the most.

She knew he was. Or at least, she had theories. Joe, at times, could read her mind. Nick and his girlfriend, Alex, could communicate without ever speaking a word aloud - unless a simple smile was all they needed to talk. Macy had an uncanny knack for predicting the future. And Kevin was Kevin. He had always had something magical about him.

She would be the only one, the mortal. The odd one out. Yet, they would get punished for being what they were.

"I love you, Joe," she whispered. "No matter what you are. Whether you're a wizard or not a wizard." She paused. "Are you a wizard?"

There was no hesitation. Only a snort. "No."

Stella wasn't sure if the words were a life preserver to keep her afloat, or an anchor to pull her under. She wasn't sure if he was lying or telling the truth.

Joe was telling the truth. Just not the whole truth. Never the whole truth.

"Are we safe, Joe? I mean, from the wizards."

"They say two-thirds of them are in the holding places." Not my brothers, he hoped. Please, not my brothers.

"Hm. Just a lot of numbers to me. Statistics."

"Reminds me. Quadratic formula?"

"Changing the subject again, Joseph? X equals negative b plus-minus the square root of b squared minus four-a-c all over two-a."

"Thanks."

"I'm a little concerned on why you keep changing the subject."

"Because I don't like talking about it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't, Stella."

"You're hiding something. What are you hiding?"

"Isn't the point of hiding something not to tell anyone?"

"Anyone but a girlfriend?"

"Nice try."

"Hm. Obviously our honestly pact didn't work well."

"I love you, Stella."

"I love you too, Joe."

They kissed once more.

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**a/n: reviews are love and so much more. now it's almost time for leno... i've stayed up this late and i must watch my boys... so yeah. bye!**


	6. language of sarcasm

**A/N: I'm a wonderful updater. ;) And now will be the time to state to all the world that I am going away starting this Saturday and won't be back for a week. There will be no way to reach me unless you have my cell phone number (you stalkers) and you are on the Verizon network. (Like Nicholas. Totally not the point, but… haha. He told us at the Jan. 13****th**** concert.)**

**To anonymous: Justin Bieber has an okay-ish voice, if he got better writers writing songs for him (only to assume he isn't writing his own, in which case, he should stop writing songs and get people to write them for him), and lose the attitude. I won't hold the high-pitched-ness against him. Because of Nick. (Who lost that by age thirteen, might I add.)**

**Disclaimer: Honestly, if I owned those boys, 1) that would be illegal, since it's illegal to own a person 2) they would like the Red Sox and the Celtics. So obviously, I don't. Besides, if I really owned JONAS or WOWP, they would need to hire someone else to come up with the episode titles.**

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**chapter six: the language of sarcasm**

"Lucas! I need to talk to you."

Yay. This is the point in my (quite short) employment that I get fired. Because I broke a rule. One stupid, very dumb rule.

I have a crush on one of the captives. Like that's supposed to be a crime for a teenage boy. It doesn't help that she was my girlfriend before this. It _really _doesn't help that I'm undercover trying to help all these people to escape this hell-hole. But he doesn't know that. (I hope.) He doesn't know that I act all dumb and blonde (no offence to Stella, please), that I'm really much smarter than he gives me credit for and I don't really swear that much in real life. Just at him. Because I really, really hate him.

"What is it, sir?" I brush my blonde (ew) bangs (ew-times-two) in front of my face and instead of looking the president-CEO-caretaker-person (whose name I don't actually know) in the eye, focus on trying to make it curly. Because it's straight (ew-squared).

"You stared at a girl for exactly eighteen-point-oh-two seconds yesterday," he says. Yup. That's exactly what I did. Looked at Alex because she's the real reason that I'm here.

"Your point is…?"

"That's against the rules."

"That's a shitty rule."

"Do you want to get fired?" He narrows his eyes. The answer is no, I didn't, but I most definitely did not want to be here, either. So I shake my head no, and mumble out some lame excuse about needing the money. Ha. He doesn't even pay us minimum wage. "Then stop fraternizing with the bitches."

"I didn't even talk to her," I point out, wishing I had.

He shrugs. "It doesn't matter. Next time, there will be punishment, Aaron."

For a split second I wonder who the hell Aaron was until I remember the fake name I had given him when I was employed. There's no way good publicity would come out of us working here. "Yes, sir," I say, saluting him sarcastically, and walk away towards my post.

"Don't do anything stupid, Lucas, tonight I'm taking my wife out for date night."

There was absolutely no freaking way I was going to listen to him. We'd been planning this for weeks beforehand; we've decided that today was the day. We are going to get the hell out of here. And bring approximately three thousand kids with various magical abilities with us.

Um, yay. This ought to go well. (I speak the language of sarcasm fluently. Alex taught it to me.)

There's about a gap of five or so minutes in between our shifts (wonderful planning, I know), and when I walk into the room, the soft buzzing of kids talking instantly stops. I glance at the camera in the corner, knowing full well that no one would be watching it until the Bossman reviews the footage tomorrow. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a boy with a baseball. "Can I borrow that?" I ask softly. He pushes it towards me, too scared to even say no. I smile (or attempt at it), then turn and throw the ball towards the camera.

The girl in the cage underneath it ducks, but I don't miss my target and the thing shatters to pieces. A couple of people applaud. I can't help but grin as the ball comes back to me and I repeat it with the other three cameras. Most of the people look genuinely confused, but there are some who have seemed to catch on.

"Okay," I say, half to myself, once I'm done, reaching into my pant leg to pull out my wand. "Let's do this." I had practiced this at the motel, unlocking and locking all the doors. It was easy now; I waved my wand and they all simultaneously clicked open.

I love being a wizard.

As all the kids just stare at the open locks, and some of them at me, Alex takes a running leap and tackles me. _I knew it was you._

_Did you? _I smile and hug her. She's lying on my chest, a flat-out grin on her face, her knotted hair somehow in my mouth. But it's actually her.

_Nope. But I figured it out yesterday. Does that count?_

_Good enough for me._

And then the door swings open.

I am so completely fired.

(alexpov)

Two seconds ago was my fairy-tale, Nick was my prince. I really still am a damsel in distress. Oh dear God, please help me.

In walks a man I've never seen before, Bossman (as Nick calls him). As I was lying on his chest, staring into his chocolate eyes, and daydreaming about our wedding while telepathically talking to him.

I can tell he's mad because he's doing that weird twitching thing that mortals do.

Behind him is Kevin. Who, like Nick, has blonde, straight hair. Justin Bieber must have been their model. (Bad choice.) His older brother pretends to look shocked, then turns away and starts laughing quietly.

"Lucas." The Bossman offers Nick a hand, pushing me off to the side with one swift kick in the ribcage. Nick feels it just as much as I do, wincing with pain as he gets up off the ground. "Follow me." I'm wondering if they're just going to leave me lying here (with Kevin, I guess he's Nick's replacement) when he adds, "Take the girl with you."

Well this really can't be good.

Nick half drags me, half slowly pulls me after Bossman. _Alex, I'm sorry…_

_Nick, it's my fault, not yours._

He shakes his head, and despite everything, laces his fingers through mine. The Bossman doesn't notice, and I look at our hands for a while, thinking how the spaces between the fingers are made for another's, because his fit perfectly.

We walk down hallway after hallway after hallway. I've never seen this part of the building before, and from the looks of Nick's nervous facial expression (and well, of course, I can hear what he's thinking, too), he hasn't either. Finally, we stop at a door and the Bossman opens it. "Go on in," he says sweetly.

"Fuck you," I mutter as I walk by.

_Watch your language, Alexandra._

_Who are you, my mother?_

The room we walk into is empty, save for a cardboard box. "I love what you've done with the place," I say dryly, kicking the box. Nick lets go of my hand and leans against the corner, avoiding eye contact. He even manages to look cute pouting in the corner, blonde bangs brushed in front of his eyes.

"You've always been a rebellious one, Miss Russo," Bossman says. "Always trying to go against the herd, if you know what I mean."

Wait.

Lame cowboy references?

I look quickly at the man. Bolo tie.

Holy shit. It's Mr. Laritate.

_So, um, you know him? Can I punch him in the face now?_

_Can you get back in character?_

_I _am _in character._

_Be yourself, Nick. Not whoever he thinks you are. I like you better as Nick Lucas, not as Justin Bieber._

_Oh, thanks. Means a lot. _

_You're welcome._

"Why hello, Mr. Laritate," I say. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Would your rockstar boyfriend like to see you cheating on him with this traitor to the human race?" he asked. I've never seen him like this. At least he doesn't know that my rockstar boyfriend is in the corner.

"How do you know about Nick?" I snarl, pushing him up against the wall. It wasn't nearly as hard as it should have been.

"Who's Nick?" Nick chimes in from the corner. A smile fights the corners of his lips, but he looks completely confused as I look from him to Mr. Lariate and back, pretending to think of some completely lame excuse to who exactly Nick was.

_To be honest, I'm not too sure myself. You said Bieber?_

_One, you're Nick, not Justin. Two, can you please stop reading my mind?_

_Sorry. I just like having you here._

_I wish I could hug you right now._

_Don't give me any ideas._

"Let's just say that it was my team of cameras that unearthed that your family were wizards, that exposed the secret, not to mention the fact that the Lucases are too. Nothing's safe, Alexandra. You may be a wizard, but never underestimate mortal technology." He shakes his head, smiling. "I can offer you a deal, however. You let this boy who seems to have a crush on you… you know, _rape _you, then I won't tell anyone about your little secret. He certainly seems eager to." He turns to Nick. "So, boy, Lucas, what do you say? Help this girl out?" Pause. "You aren't related to the Lucases of JONAS fame, are you?"

"No, sir." Nick looks down, cheeks beginning to turn red with the lie.

_Say no. I can handle any publicity that comes my way. I'll be fine. We'll be fine, together._

"Aaron Lucas, look at me." He does just that, green eyes wide with nervousness. "Are you willing to do this for her?"

He bites his lip, shakes his head. "That goes against my values, sir."

Mr. Laritate looked like he was about to explode. "Well then, you're fired, Miss Russo here is going back in her cage, or…" He looks towards the box and pulls out a knife. My heart begins to beat faster. "Would you like to…?"

"If I don't work for you anymore, than no, I wouldn't." Nick heads for the door, brushing by me as he leaves. I feel something cool touch my hand. His wand.

"But you could continue to…" He grins mischievously. I find myself missing the lame Western references.

"You don't even pay me fucking minimum wage!"

_If you're my mother, I'll be yours. Don't swear, Nicholas._

_Shut up, Alex. _He says it playfully, though, the smile still twitching at his lips.

Before I can think, Mr. Laritate has the knife to my neck, me against the wall instead of him. He draws a little blood, not enough to cause more pain than I'm used to everyday, but enough to have Nick spin around, hand on his neck, red liquid sticking to his hand as he pulls it away. "Well then, since it's no longer illegal in the state of New Jersey to kill you…" He pushes harder, and I grip the wand tighter. The gash is deeper now, and the blood beads out faster.

"Stop," Nick whispers.

"Should've thought of that before, Lucas," Mr. Laritate growls.

While he's distracted, I pull out the wand behind my back and point it at Mr. Laritate's throat. Before I can even say a word, a beam of bright light flies out of it and at him. Both Nick and Mr. Laritate are just as shocked as I am, but Nick manages to get the wand out of my hand and, pointing it at my former teacher, whispers, "Simplify your mind, leave that thought behind." Memory spell. As Mr. Laritate slumps back against the wall, Nick grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room, down the corridors again.

I notice that one of the rooms of cages is now empty. "Juliet and Kevin must've gotten them through the portal," Nick whispers to me as we run. "God, I hope they can keep their jobs."

"What are you going to do?"

"Leave. Wash the freaking dye out. Let my hair curl." He looks at me; smiles. "Be with you."

"Where are we going?"

"Um, yeah. I'm not sure yet. Probably back to my house – for a little while, anyway. But if someone finds us there, if Mr. Laritate can actually tell the world about me being… us being… wizards, then we're going to need somewhere better to hide."

"Then we'll wing it. It'll be alright, Nick." I hugged him close again, as if trying to convince myself he was actually here.

He smiled half-heartedly, sort of believing my words but not really. Exactly how I felt. "Then let's go," he said softly, and handed me the wand, sticking a post-it note I hadn't noticed he had been holding to the wall. I caught a glimpse of two words – Kevin and Juliet.

I looked at the stick, and before flashing us out of there, ran it through his hair, watching it turn brown and curly right before our eyes. His smile became wider, and then the prison I had known for seemingly so long disappeared.

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**A/N: In need of stress relief? So am I. Leave me a message after the beep. Well, um, no beep, but press the button and pretend there's one, then leave me a message. kbye.**


	7. chapter seven doesn't have a name

**A/N: I'm clinging to the hope that you'll accept this short chapter only because it's actually something I've written over that past... what? three months? something like that?**

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He was mad. Scratch that, he was infuriated. It wasn't just that his prisoners had escaped, no, it was who had done it.

Stalking back and forth, he glared at his remaining guards with extreme dislike, as if he actually believed it was their fault. "You let the fucking kids get away?" he fumed. His staffers nodded. Yes, they had. In part, anyway.

"It wasn't all us," one man added, as if buying himself time with this job. "You know that the guards that let them go were spies. We just... didn't catch them."

"Yes, of course," he muttered. The Lucas brat, that's who it was. His first, and rather unsuccessful attempts to achieve what was rightfully his, the wizard power. And he hadn't been alone. His so-called brother, the formerly faithful Corbett, and some vampire chick he hadn't met before. But the Angels were no longer useful to him, however, and neither was young Nicholas and his girlfriend, Alexandra. Simple obstacles, they were. As immortal as they might be, they were still human, still easily breakable.

This form he had was also human, just as easily broken as it was disposed. He would be strong enough soon, he reminded himself, he would at last achieve his own form.

"It won't happen again," the man was still promising, pleading.

He narrowed his eyes. "I'll spare you," he mumbled. "Report back here at five o'clock on Monday for assignments. Don't be late." He dismissed his employees with a wave of his hand and turned back to his computer.

How he had overlooked Nicholas in the first place was baffling to him, as if his simple disguise of blonde, straight hair was enough to fool anyone. He should've known, anyway, that the boy would be dumb enough to try to save his beloved girl, risking everything. But instead he'd been unable to see past it, until it was too late.

And then, when they'd confronted him, he'd let them go. He'd angered the girl by looking through the memories of his host body, and by experiencing her first hand by acting as her vice-principal, then turning on her when she'd thought he was her friend. Of course, Mr. Laritate was, he was not.

He didn't realize that the Lucas boy was there until too late.

The memory spell they'd done had little to no effect. He was stronger than their magic, getting stronger everyday. As soon as he could, he'd get out of here and reveal the wizards he knew of, turn the world upside down, and somehow, guide the world through this time of wariness towards friends.

Focusing on the computer screen, he typed in slowly, "JONAS address new jersey". And when the computer turned back 1-10 of 1,000,000 results, he smiled and clicked on the first link.

You see, even after he fails, Samael never, ever gives up.

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Sitting on the roof of Nick's house reminded Alex of the terrace back home, and how she would sit and stare for hours at the stars, alone. In some ways, this was better - she could feel Nick's arm around her, holding her close, and the light pollution wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the city, but although she wouldn't admit it, she missed home. She missed her mom's cooking, her dad's eating, the sub shop, everything about it. It was home, and they say there's no place like it.

She recalled seeing her brothers again, a week after they'd taken down Mr. Laritate and escaped. That was two days ago, she thought grimly. They'd hidden in the wizard realm with some friends, while she'd opted to stay here with Nick and his family. And only yesterday, they'd seen a story on the television about how over one thousand magical creatures had escaped a holding facility, with the help of three unidentified guards. They'd smiled knowingly, exchanged glances with Kevin, but nothing too extreme. Life seemed almost normal again. Almost.

But life wasn't normal, not if there were wizard hunters (of the non-magical kind) around town, asking everyone possible to try out their new detectors. Of course, she already knew they didn't work - Kevin had survived a testing - but she didn't care. The whole now-extended Lucas family was concerned about what would come next - mainly, what would happen if the word got out that they were a magical family.

Joe would often half-heartedly joke about which would be more of a surprise to the fans: the fact that they were Angels/wizards or the fact that Nick wasn't actually their brother. But then Stella would walk through the door before anyone could tell him to be serious about this.

It didn't take long for Alex (and Macy, who was staying with them) to catch on that the number one rule in this household for Stella not to find out that they were what they were, which was harder than it might seem. Between the three wizards and the five Angels that now resided in the firehouse, someone always slipped up and someone else always ended up covering for them, most of the time with lame excuses that were so translucent it was unclear to her how Stella continued to believe them.

"Nick?" she asked, quietly.

"Yeah?" His reply was a bit absentminded, like his mind was elsewhere.

Alex suddenly forgot what she was about to say. "I love you," she said lamely.

He smiled. "No need to tell me that, Alex." He looked to the sky. "I love you too."

It sounded like an afterthought to her. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Liar."

He sighed. "I'm just a bit... worried about what's coming," he said softly. "That's all, really."

"Aren't we all?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I get the feeling that Joe's ready to turn us all in to prove something to Stella." He looked at his hands. "And they're not even wizards. It's harder for us, we're the most sought after. And then..." He shook his head. "Never mind."

"Tell me," she pressed.

He shook his head. "I don't want to worry you."

"You know I can just read your mind, right?"

"Sadly." He sighed again. "I'm worried about Samael."

"Didn't your brother kill him?"

"I don't know. He didn't kill me, so I'm not so sure about Samael, either."

She shuddered at that memory, of Joe killing who was seemingly Nick. "You were dead," she said softly. "Somehow, I managed to bring you back to life."

"Then I wasn't completely dead, was I?" he pointed out dryly.

She frowned, not knowing exactly how to answer the question. "Nick, please. He's gone. Can't you just... be positive?"

He didn't reply, this time. His eyes were distant, as if focusing on something far, far away from reality. Alex pushed herself closer into his mind, only to be pushed back. Frustrated, she shook his shoulders. "Nick!" she cried, desperately.

"Sorry." He shook his head, curls bouncing, as if clearing something from his mind. "It's just... I don't know."

And as thunder began to ring out across the skyscape, Nick pulled Alex close and kissed her, lightly, on the cheek. But even with his arm around her, she was still unsettled.

She didn't want to admit it, but there was a chance he might be right.

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**A/N: Is summer too busy for anyone else, or is that just me? Leave me a review, please. I'd appreciate it.**

**Yeah.**

**I need to apologize to chibi right here because I haven't read ANYTHING of hers in the past month, much less reviewed it, so I'm SOOOOOO SORRYY and I'll try to catch up as soon as I get back from Wyoming/Montana/Idaho/Grand Tetons/Yellowstone/Glacier/everything else.**

**(P.S. Yankees/Sox series, each won two games each out of four played.)**

**~ Snowy**


	8. chapter eight doesn't either

**A/N: Ideas, ideas. I realize this is a lame story. I'm working on that.**

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"Where are we going?"

Nick, of course, doesn't respond. He's got me blindfolded and I'm magically obliged not to take the bandana off, believe me, I've already tried. It's hard for me to think that I've helped teach him all he knows over the past year and he's already using magic against me. Not that I haven't used it against him, but I'm Alex Russo. That's just what I do.

"Nicholas. Answer me."

"Somewhere." I can only imagine his smirk. Trying to rebel, I push into his mind, trying to find some hint.

_Nice try. _He pushes me out. I stick out my tongue in the direction I think he's in. _We're almost there._

_We better be. _As he parks the car, I once again try to take off my blindfold. And once again, my hand is magically propelled into the windshield.

"I hate you," I mutter as he leads me down a set of stairs and further towards our destination.

"I love you," he replies. He knows how to twist me around his finger, that's for sure. At least I know his weaknesses. All of them. The only problem is, of course, finding a way to use them against him without actually hurting myself. Plus I love the boy. I mean… yeah.

I can practically feel the stares boring into my head, even with his bandana tied around my face. (God, it smells like him. Insert girly sigh here.) It sounds like the city, it _feels _like the city, but we could be in LA or Boston or Minneapolis for all I know. It's just a city. I just really, really want it to be New York.

So when Nick finally takes off my blindfold, and the first words I see are "Waverly Sub Station" (three words I can read without headaches), I squeal quite loudly and pull him close to me, feeling the vibration of his cute, husky laugh against my chest. "You're welcome," he says cockily, smiling at me.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" I shove him aside and run through the door eagerly.

Home smells like home – the smell of sliced lunchmeat, slightly stale bread, and cleaning chemicals, the noise of customers eating and my best friend waiting tables and screaming my name…

"Harper!" In two seconds, she's got her arms wrapped around me in a tight embrace, one that could only be replaced by Nick's warm arms around me. But I'll never tell her that. "I missed you."

"You can't be here," she says, to my surprise. Her eyes are wide; her lips barely turned up in a smile. "Alex-they know. Everyone knows."

"Knows what?" I ask.

She lowers her voice. "That you're a…"

"Nick brought me here," I spit out before she can finish, always ever-so-quick to blame someone else. I hear his little sigh-grunt behind me, and turn my head to look at him over my shoulder, then back to Harper.

"It's true," he admits. "I… know she misses you. Her parents."

"Mind-reader," I mutter. Not that I mind that much, most of the time.

"They were evicted," Harper says quietly. This catches my attention. "Someone else owns the shop now. They let me keep my job – I get paid now – but… it's just… I wish everything was the way it was before." Tears well up in my eyes. I can't stop them. "Alex…"

"It's all my fault," I choke out between sobs. "Mr. Laritate-I was careless-he _knows_-I can't lose everyone I love."

Harper wraps her arms around me again, and I feel Nick come up from behind and rest his head on mine. "We'll make it through this," he whispers, and Harper nods.

"Can I help you?" A new, unfamiliar voice asks. I peek through the tangle of arms to see a girl, about my age, with blonde hair and the most icy-cold eyes. "Welcome to Waverly Sub Station."

Harper retracts her arms, waves slightly, and mouths "text me" before retreating to go clear tables. Nick repositions so his arms are around me and smiles at the waitress. "Um, no, we're good," he says softly, probably at this point more interested in the smell of my hair (which his nose was quite obviously in) than anything else.

The girl stares at us, twirling her hair around her finger rather flirtatiously, trying to look bored. "Hey, aren't you that wizard girl?" She puts the emphasis on 'wizard' like she's trying to tell the whole restaurant. She probably is. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, boy," she continues, fearlessly. There was an awkward pause, in which the sub shop seemed to get eerily quiet, before she asked, "You want my number?"

"You think I care what the hell she is?" Nick retorts. She steps back. "I don't."

"You'll care when she hurts you. Uses you to gain immunity." She smirks at me. "The police are already coming. I called the minute I saw you step in the door. Finkle here…" She smiles, cunningly. "Just bait."

Harper takes off her apron, stalking over here to stand by my side. "I stand by my friends," she says. "Alex has always been one of them." Nick nods in agreement. "I don't need this job."

"You did your job," the girl says. "You don't matter now, anyway."

"We have to go," Nick whispers in my ear, and as he pulls me towards the door, they swing open.

And that's when I panic. I've never really been one to panic, but even the girl who's committed more crimes than she can count, both magical and un-magical, gets scared by bulky guys in bulletproof vests and navy blue. And I wasn't the cunning, 'evil' (complete with air-quotes), mischievous girl I used to be, either.

Nick wraps his arms around me, showing no intention of ever letting me go. "Don't use magic," I whisper in his ear. "Stay innocent. Stay mortal." He nods, ever-so-slightly.

"Alex Russo." A cop stepped forward and looked me in the eye. "Wizard."

I wanted so badly to retort something sarcastic to him, but instead I tried to look all meek and innocent. "Hi."

"Hi?" Harper says incredulously, either completely oblivious to the police or somehow so absorbed in my change of character she didn't even notice them. "That's it? What happened to the Alex I knew?"

"She's a wizard," another cop says. "She's not the person you thought she ever was."

"I knew all along." She stood next to me, hands on her hips. "She's my best friend."

"Harper." I shake my head rapidly. "Don't do this." My voice is just over a whisper. It's all an act, I mean, I could be acting like normal-Alex and be shoving my pro-magic-I-didn't-do-anything speech down their throats before flashing myself out of there. But I didn't want to be FBI's most wanted, either.

The cops look interested in what Harper has to say, motioning for her to go on. "Did she ever do anything to hurt you or harm you?"

"No." But the answer isn't confident enough to fool the cops, and certainly, I had done plenty of stuff to earn the tentativeness of her answer. There were too many things I had done to her to list. She notices that the police don't buy it "Nothing that I never recovered from anyway, and nothing intentional."

"But she's still _dangerous,_" the police stress. I try to hide myself in Nick's shirt. "Intentional or not, it's not safe. If you two do the right thing, you'd let her go." Her hands are on her hips, obviously annoyed. I look to Nick's face and start counting his freckles and moles, like I do when I'm nervous or can't sleep at night. Somehow the little brown circles on his face comfort me. I've never known why.

"I…" Nick does a great job of feigning horror. Mostly because I know he's mostly not faking it. "I don't know."

"The alternative is easy," she continues. "You can come with her to prison, or you can stay here. You don't gain anything going with her, but… if that's what you desire."

I step forward from Nick a small step, looking her in the eye. "I swear, I won't do anything."

"You escaped the first time." She looks me in the eye, not backing down.

"I was given the chance to escape. Was I supposed to stay?"

The cop shrugs. "You wouldn't be the first of your kind to come over to our side. In fact, we had a boy today give up his powers willingly. He helped track you here, actually. He turned in his own family for the girl he loved."

I sigh. "Great for him. His loss. There's nothing like family." I push back thoughts of my own parents, of Justin, of Max. This isn't helping. I don't want to break down in front of all these people. "You're not trying to take me by force. Why do you even want me?"

"You never know with a wizard." I feel the cool metal of handcuffs around my wrists, and, ever-so-suddenly, Nick next to me, his voice echoing in my ears.

"You're taking me too."

The cop raises her eyebrows, but doesn't object. "One less Lucas down, then."

This comment makes him flinch back. "What?"

"That boy? It was your brother."

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**A/N: Seems like a short chapter to me, but hey, it's writing, and it's getting the story in a direction. Like my cliffy? I'm not very good at them, but... yeah. review please :)**


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